Her body was barely cold and already I was swamped with piles of important documents and bills. I didn’t have the courage to go through her stuff yet. It was easier to turn off the lights and let her presence linger in the apartment. Her place remained empty and dark for months. I still paid her phone bill so I wouldn’t forget the sound of her voice on the answering machine. On the weekends my friends would drunk text their girlfriends but I would call her, hoping that she would pick up. She never did but I never stopped trying.

Trotti is 24 year old New York college student majoring in Creative Writing. His fiction has appeared in Glass Cases, Six Sentences, Eskimo Pie and Down in the Dirt.

Larry, a crack head, stands in an alley with his friend James, a dumpster, and together they wait for the rendezvous with Mac, a gangster, who sits shotgun in a black sedan. It rolls up in the night without headlights. Mac has his arm out the window and a pocket full of crack and Larry walks up with a few dollar bills and a handful of change. Mac’s not having it but Larry needs his crack and James keeps quiet. The argument doesn‘t last long because Mac doesn‘t fuck around and he‘s packing a big ass gat. Gun shots, two or three of them, then the jingle of dropped coins echoes in the alley. The dumpster thumps.

Every Sunday morning Denise’s mom would make pancakes for breakfast. Actually it was more towards noon, so maybe it was brunch. Denise’s brother would have already picked her up from Sunday school by the time her mother started her kitchen rant after having slept in as long as possible. She liked to sleep late. Denise’s dad got up before dawn every day. It was just his way.

Denise had read in one of her mother’s womens magazines that married couples were better suited for each other if they had the same sleep schedule. Denise worried that her parents weren’t perfectly compatible in that regard. That and the fact that they argued constantly. Sometimes Denise would cry herself to sleep at night listening to the raised voices and accusations suffocating the air around her. Her brother locked himself away in his bedroom escaping to his books and records.

Swedish pancakes were good but Denise loved the buckwheat ones best. Her mother was a good cook. The problem was everyone loved her mother’s hotcakes and they were ready for seconds before her mother had a chance to sit down herself and eat. Every time a new batch was ready, someone handed her their empty syrupy plate. Oil splattered the stove, spatula flying. It always ended with Denise’s mother yelling that she wanted to eat too and could she just get a goddamn break for once?

All she needed to do was have two frying pans going instead of one. She would have gotten hers in half the time it took to yell about it.

Arlyn West lives in Colorado and makes her living writing software. She writes fiction in her spare time when she's not out riding horses.

He always had too much money. Born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, he grew up in Eton, went straight into business to turn over several more millions. What he ever saw in me I’ll never know. I’m a mousy character, I hang around in corners near the food table at parties. His parties. I was on his C list, to make up the numbers when someone cancelled, I suppose. The distant cousin. I loved him when we were children, I still do, if I’m honest. He taught me to squeak grass, how to get a limpit off a rock, how to fire an air rifle. His was my first real kiss. But he’s far too busy with god knows how many women to even notice me these days. A long winter weekend, his birthday party. His chilly but luxurious Oxfordshire mansion. We all went out to the shed to watch. He took Deborah McAllister first. She’s so glamorous and loud, I can’t stand her. Up they went, loop the loop, diving, spinning, then his party piece, cutting the engine. He does it every year. We heard the sound of the engine stop, and hearts leapt, guts and throats tightened. We waited, everyone gasped, an in-breath held, eyes skyward… until the engine roared and we all breathed again in unison relief. After Deborah, he took Harry James, more acrobatics, showing off to the younger man, ‘See if you like this Harry.’ He cut the engine, the same suspense, only this time it seemed much longer, until it coughed to life again, up and away. Auntie Maeve was next. She’s sixty-five so he took a very straight path with her, just a plain safe short ride in a fast machine. I was glad. He looked at me when they’d landed and winked. I busied my eyes elsewhere, knowing he would ask me, teasing when I declined, ‘still scared cousin.’ And then it was Gerry’s turn, dear Gerry. The dependable, caring sort. Before he got in he gave me a peck on each cheek, just here.. and here… For some reason, he always showed off most to Gerry. I often wonder if it was because he not-so-secretly faniced Kelsie, Gerry’s stunning Canadian wife. Up they went, spiralling into the sky, spinning, upside down, rolling, loop the loop, painting graceful circles. I watched, with a mixture of envy and dread, the tiny plane, free as a bird. Then came the stupid cutting of the engine, the silence, the gasp, the held in-breath, the waiting, tightening, gripping, twisting, squeezing hard, holding on, waiting, waiting, collapsing screaming shouting fainting wailing running yelling no no no. Away in the distance, just a thin cloud of black smoke and a single flame twirling up and away towards the clouds.

Jo Hutton works as a sound artist for a national radio station and writes short fiction in her spare time, hoping to get published sometime soon.